Wednesday, July 26, 2006

It's pretty cool that they let me do this. DVDTalk has a lot of traffic, and people who may not normally stumble onto a comic book site and find coverage of the comics scene can end up seeing this. I made the report as link heavy as I could so people's stuff could get seen. It's also mainly business, with most personal anecdotes being left out, so it's by no means comprehensive. I saw so many people at the show, I'm not even going to begin to try to shout-out to you all.

But, as promised on my e-mail list yesterday (and if you want on, drop me a line, though the blog really covers the same territory and does so way more often), I do have one story that amuses me that I want to share:

I entered the Hyatt on Saturday night and was instantly set upon by Martin G., who was all in a tizzy. He said that a certain Artist We Know (let's only name the guilty) had spotted a beautiful blonde walking through the lobby with someone Chynna Clugston and I knew. Chynna had confirmed that this woman was not attached to our friend, and Martin had decided that he and I were going to go do reconnaissance and talk to her about this situation, find out what the scoop was for AWK. I agreed for some reason (too many Greyhounds?) and as we walked to the bar on the far side, Martin informed me that though this was his hair-brained scheme, I was to do all the talking.

We find the people in the bar, and we get our friend to make an introduction to the Blonde. I ask her what she does, her connection to comics, etc., and as I do, I realize that there is no map to the small talk that will carry us from this to the question at hand, and so...

JAMIE: Screw it, I'm drunk. I'm going to cut to the chase...I have a question for you.BLONDE: Okay.JAMIE: A friend of ours--you probably don't even know who--saw you walking in the lobby. He doesn't even know we're here, but he thought you were stunning. If he was to come over to you and maybe start talking to you, would you be open to someone doing that?BLONDE: [hesitates]JAMIE: If not, that's okay.BLONDE [maybe blushing, maybe creeped out?]: No, I'm with someone.JAMIE: No problem then. MARTIN [leaning in, pointing at me]: Isn't this guy smooth?

At that point, I was embarrassed. Yeah, right, dude. That was real smooth. We said our good-byes and exited. "So," I asked Martin, "which of us do you think she assumed we were asking for?"

On the way back, I thought we agreed that we would tell AWK that we only spoke to our male friend and not her, and he said she had a boyfriend. I thought that would make it seem less weird for him, like he wasn't even turned down by her. But as soon as we arrive, Martin walks right up to AWK and shouts, "We talked to her, and she has a girlfriend!"

A girlfriend?

Okay, Martin's gay, so maybe we can give him a pass for not knowing, but that's not what you tell a straight guy. Hello, can you find a stinkier cheese to wave under the mouse's nose? You're just going to excite him more.

Later I conferred with the friend of the Blonde, and he said yes, she was suspicious if it was one of us, but she was somewhat flattered and would be moreso to find out it was genuine. I didn't think to ask if she had lied about the boyfriend. Not that I'd blame her. I'm just curious.

AWK is also the one who said to me at the show, "I like you. You show up for your signing and you're already half in the bag." He also claims the incident confirmed everything he had heard about me, which is a little scary if you think about it.

Sadly, the next night, AWK spent a good amount of time chatting up another girl until Martin and boytoy Ian Shaughnesexxy stumbled in and totally cockblocked him. I didn't get an explanation as to what they had done, as they had gotten half in the bag themselves and proceeded to fall through the bottom of it, but maybe Ian can post in the comments section here and let us all know.

Also, Ian gave me the coolest thing I got at the convention, though his mother had imported it straight from Japan for me, it wasn't a con purchase. I had never seen one before. This very cool Holly Golightly doll:

My confession...

Author of prose novels and comic books like Cut My Hair, It Girl & the Atomics, You Have Killed Me, and 12 Reasons Why I Love Her. Jamie's most recent novel is the serialized book Bobby Pins and Mary Janes, and his most recent graphic novels are the sci-fi romance A Boy and a Girl with Natalie Nourigat; Madame Frankenstein with Megan Levens; and the weird crime comic Archer Coe & the Thousand Natural Shocks with Dan Christensen. He also co-created Lady Killer with Joëlle Jones.